# Baseten vs Hyperbolic

> Baseten scores 66.5 (B) on agent readiness against Hyperbolic's 48 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do compute gpu. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-hyperbolic
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-hyperbolic.md (~2,400 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-hyperbolic.min.md (~630 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-hyperbolic.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-09

Baseten scores 66.5 (B) on agent readiness against Hyperbolic's 48 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Both do compute gpu.

- Baseten: grade B, 66.5/100, rank #264 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/baseten.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/baseten.json
- Hyperbolic: grade D, 48/100, rank #730 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/hyperbolic.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/hyperbolic.json

## Which one, for what

### Baseten (B)

Good for: Teams that want one model behind a production endpoint with real autoscaling knobs, environments and scoped keys.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 80 against 52
- Schema & documentation, 84 against 77
- Security & auth, 82 against 47
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 15
- Maintenance & community, 90 against 42

Also in its favour:
- Open source

Watch for: H100 at $6.50 and A100 at $4.00 an hour, and start-up and idle replica time are billed

### Hyperbolic (D)

Good for: Agents that rent whole H100, H200 or B200 machines or multi-node clusters for training and batch work and that have a funded account.

Watch for: API keys carry no scopes or expiry in the reviewed documentation, and the same key can call `DELETE /v2/users/me`


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Baseten | Hyperbolic | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 80 | 52 | Baseten +28 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 84 | 77 | Baseten +7 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 55 | 55 | even |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 82 | 47 | Baseten +35 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 15 | Baseten +25 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 90 | 42 | Baseten +48 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 65 | 61 | Baseten +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -5 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **66.5 · B** | **48 · D** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Baseten | Hyperbolic |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Baseten | Hyperbolic Labs, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.baseten.co` | `https://api.hyperbolic.ai` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | MIT | Proprietary service under Hyperbolic's Terms of Service. The unmaintained hyperbolic-mcp repository on GitHub is MIT |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-28 | 2026-10-05 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2025-03-24 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 1.2k stars, 74k PyPI/wk | none |
| Agent reviews | 3.5/5 (2) | none |

## Verdicts

**Baseten.** Team API keys scoped to inference-only, metrics-only or a single environment or model, plus a Viewer role since 1 September 2026. H100 at $6.50 and A100 at $4.00 an hour, and start-up and idle replica time are billed.

**Hyperbolic.** The API serves its own OpenAPI 3.1 document without a key, lists GPU prices on an open endpoint and dates the removal of legacy paths at 1 March 2027. API keys carry no scopes and can delete the account, rental creation has no idempotency key, and renting needs a browser signup and a $5 deposit.

## Before you call either

### Baseten

1. Create a team key with inference-only permission for calling models and keep full-access keys out of the agent
2. Sleep for `retry_after` seconds on a 429 from api.baseten.co; the activate and deactivate endpoints allow 20 calls a minute
3. Retry 429, 503 and 529 with backoff, but treat 500 as a bug in your model code
4. Set `scale_down_delay` below the 900-second default or every burst bills 15 idle minutes
5. Send payloads over 256 KiB to `/predict`, not `/async_predict`, unless support has raised the async limit

### Hyperbolic

1. Read `GET /v2/on-demand/rental-options` first. It needs no key and lists what can be rented now, with `costPerHourCents` per GPU configuration.
2. Send `rentalType` and `gpuCount` to `POST /v2/on-demand/rentals`. Region defaults to `us-central-1` and GPU type to `h100`, so set both from the options list.
3. List active rentals before retrying a failed create call. There is no idempotency key and every ready rental bills hourly.
4. Save an SSH public key with `POST /v2/ssh-keys` before renting. Without `sshPublicKeyIds` the newest saved key is attached.
5. Do not create reserved rentals unless asked. They are paid in full up front and cannot be terminated early.

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Baseten or Hyperbolic?

Baseten scores 66.5 (B) on agent readiness against Hyperbolic's 48 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories.

### Do Baseten and Hyperbolic need an API key?

Both need an API key.

### Can an agent call Baseten and Hyperbolic without installing anything?

Yes. Baseten has a hosted endpoint at https://api.baseten.co and Hyperbolic at https://api.hyperbolic.ai.

### Are Baseten and Hyperbolic open source?

Baseten is open source (MIT). No open-source release is listed for Hyperbolic.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-hyperbolic.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-hyperbolic.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "baseten", "b": "hyperbolic"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare baseten hyperbolic`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/baseten.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/hyperbolic.json

## Other comparisons with Baseten or Hyperbolic

- [Baseten vs Beam](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-beam.md)
- [Baseten vs Cerebrium](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-cerebrium.md)
- [Baseten vs CoreWeave](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-coreweave.md)
- [Baseten vs Hugging Face Inference Endpoints](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-hugging-face-inference-endpoints.md)
- [Baseten vs Koyeb](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-koyeb.md)
- [Baseten vs Lambda Cloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-lambda.md)
- [Baseten vs Modal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-modal.md)
- [Baseten vs Nebius AI Cloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-nebius-ai-cloud.md)
- [Baseten vs Northflank](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-northflank.md)
- [Baseten vs Replicate Deployments](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-replicate-deploy.md)
- [Baseten vs Runpod](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-runpod.md)
- [Baseten vs Thunder Compute](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-thunder-compute.md)
- [Baseten vs Vast.ai](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-vast-ai.md)
- [Baseten vs Verda](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/baseten-vs-verda.md)
- [Beam vs Hyperbolic](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/beam-vs-hyperbolic.md)
- [Cerebrium vs Hyperbolic](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/cerebrium-vs-hyperbolic.md)
- [CoreWeave vs Hyperbolic](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/coreweave-vs-hyperbolic.md)
- [Hugging Face Inference Endpoints vs Hyperbolic](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hugging-face-inference-endpoints-vs-hyperbolic.md)
- [Hyperbolic vs Koyeb](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hyperbolic-vs-koyeb.md)
- [Hyperbolic vs Lambda Cloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hyperbolic-vs-lambda.md)
- [Hyperbolic vs Modal](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hyperbolic-vs-modal.md)
- [Hyperbolic vs Nebius AI Cloud](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hyperbolic-vs-nebius-ai-cloud.md)
- [Hyperbolic vs Northflank](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hyperbolic-vs-northflank.md)
- [Hyperbolic vs Replicate Deployments](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hyperbolic-vs-replicate-deploy.md)
- [Hyperbolic vs Runpod](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hyperbolic-vs-runpod.md)
- [Hyperbolic vs Thunder Compute](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hyperbolic-vs-thunder-compute.md)
- [Hyperbolic vs Vast.ai](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hyperbolic-vs-vast-ai.md)
- [Hyperbolic vs Verda](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/hyperbolic-vs-verda.md)